Have you considered the topology of how that guy (or any of them) actually get dressed? Their flaps get in the way!
Actual renaissance lutes tend not to have that long neck. It’s more akin to a bouzouki or similar Eastern-style instrument.
Have you asked yourself why? He’s not eating it from that position, and he’s not posed like he caught it from a heckler. He’s just … carrying it. Almost like the artist needed an excuse for that ridiculous pose.
Maybe they don’t know what apples are. The one in the center seems to be looking at one and scratching their head.
… you know, the more I look at that picture, the more I agree with you. Having “monkey people” is just a bad idea in general.
I think that’s a potion bottle, not an apple.
Of course, just using the apple as a pose excuse for the bard was me being charitable. The cynic in me knows that depicting Blacks as fruit thieves has a long storied history. Usually it’s watermelons, but apples are not unknown
Yes, yes, to whoever steps in to say the obvious - I know white kids got depicted a lot as scrumping too 
“All Scrumpers Matter”
A post was merged into an existing topic: Sock Posts by NewKobladReality
“Capering” is exactly the right word. Folks who doubt that this Hadozee image has racist allusions should try an image search like “Bard 5e” and ask yourself which of the images is likely to be singing “Jump Jim Crow.” None of them are, except the Spelljammer monkey.
Nobody, I think, attributes this to conscious malice; but noticing and changing stuff like this is how you interrupt systemic racism.
For the record, the closest I found was this, and that’s clearly more of an Irish jig-like dance.
Yes, the outfit has some faux-renaissance elements. It also has some elements evocative of minstrel shows. Almost like the artist took an archetype they were familiar with from our modern society and then made it fit the D&D esthetics.
Arguing over the exact type of stringed instrument depicted in D&D bard art is about as futule as arguing over the exact type of swords used in fighter art. The Lute is the instrument most associated with D&D art is a lute, so it certainly is very possible that that’s what the artist was going for; but the way the character holds the loot is very evocative of minstrel imagery.
And the fact that if you cover up the apple the pose is identical to the ones linked above is a coincidence?
Last time I heard about Hadozee was in a Pirate campaign where they were portrayed very differently:
You know, I see that and my mind immediately goes to a very famous WW1 propaganda poster that used existing sentiments of “apes = savages” to stoke hatred towards Germans:
Which, again, is not to say that the artist in your link had racist intent. Just that these tropes are deep, deep, deeply embedded in our culture. Teasing the imagery free of the undertones is probably impossible (and sometimes even irresponsible) while large segments of our society still embrace the sentiments that spawned the imagery in the first place.
My assumption is that it was a poor attempt at displaying Hadozee pedal dexterity. I am not denying there are racist overtones to the image. For all I know, the artist may have rummaged through various out-of-copyright stock art for ideas for the character’s pose and (ignorantly or not) picked out exactly the same minstrel show image upthread.
Rather than this pose that gives the musician a capering stance, they could have instead shown a rogue picking a lock with his toes, a monk flinging a shuriken with his foot, etc.
They seem to be trying to make the current Hadozee look like the same alien species as the Yazirians, just in different settings. The Hadozee are fantasy spacefarers while the Yazirians are science fiction spacefarers.
Here’s a Yazirian from the Star Frontiers cover art.
I think I agree with @Alessan. I just wouldn’t have used a monkey race for anything these days. Not in an era where always evil orcs or racial ability score increases are considered racist by a lot of people. It’s just too easy to make a mistake and piss people off.
…I’m still not seeing it. Folks are pointing out a picture of a minstrel performer and the picture of the bard and saying how similar they are, and every similarity is actually a point where the two look completely different. The minstrel is playing a banjo, or something like it, while the bard is playing something like a lute, and people are saying “Look at the instrument!”. The minstrel has both of his feet on the ground, while the bard is standing on one foot and doing something with his other foot that almost no human can do, and people are saying “Look at the pose!”. The minstrel is wearing an outfit from 1900 and the bard is wearing an outfit from 1600, and people are saying “Look at the clothes!”. There’s just nothing similar between the two images, beyond that they’re both playing strummed instruments. If that’s all the similarity you need, then every picture of a rock guitarist is problematic, too.
But you don’t see what you don’t want to see, I guess.
Hey, the minstrel is wearing sandals, and the bard has no shoes - how could anyone possibly see a similarity! Am I playing the game right?
Huh. I’m not very good at noticing implicit racism, unless someone points it out to me. And i might not have given that image a second thought. But in the context of, “hey, look at this picture of a monkey posed like racist minstrel imagery”, yeah, it seems pretty obvious.
And the back story that the monkeys were slaves? Who even wrote that. Eek.
Okay. Let’s step back a bit. Here is the chain of thought.
Taking all that and tying it into a contextual package, we arrive at the following:
While the image and character design are almost certainly not meant to build a racist depiction of black people, they build upon and reinforce racist tropes which which are embedded in the roots of American history and which are still embraced by segments of our society.
At which point do you disagree?
I know that you weren’t asking me but that’s an excellent write up and I agree with all of it.
You’re damn right I wasn’t! Get outta here!
Aw shit I’ve really got to read to the end of sentences before I react. Thank you. 
Here’s another picture of a member of a previously-enslaved race who’s capering while strumming a string instrument and wearing flashy clothes:
I assume that image isn’t problematic? How is the picture of the Hadozee bard more like this
(previously posted by @Johnny_Bravo )
than like that?
And if we’re that sensitive, then it’s impossible to avoid racist tropes, because there are so many of them. If they show a character who vaguely resembles a black person who’s a bard, it’s minstrelsy. If they show a character who vaguely resembles a black person who’s a fighter or barbarian, it’s the trope that blacks are savage brutes. If they’re a rogue, it’s the trope that blacks are criminals. If they’re a spellcaster, it’s the trope of the magical Negro. If they don’t show any characters at all who resemble black people, that’s obviously a problem. What’s left?
And yeah, they’re a race of monkey-people. This is in a game that also has races of fish-people and cat-people and goat-people and snake-people and turtle-people and rabbit-people and elephant-people and hippopotamus-people.